ALL AMBASSADOR’S REQUIRED TO SPEAK FRANKLY WHEN TALKING TO THEIR LEADERS

…British Ambassador. Kim Darroch, who resigned saying he’d had enough of our president.

It is understood that Trump’s appointed ambassador’s regularly offend their host countries

Let’s get something clear, what the British Ambassador, Kim Darroch, had said about President Trump, nothing he said was out of place for a diplomat in his position.  If there is a breakdown in diplomatic norms here, and yes, there is one, it did not come from the British ambassador.  What Darroch said in private about Trump was not unusual.  But what Trump’s own diplomats do and say in public is what is really shocking.

Diplomats often trash their hosts, and it’s often well deserved. As an example, André François-Poncet, the French ambassador to Germany in 1935, wrote that Adolf Hitler was “obstinate, stubborn and mean to the point of madness.”  A massive leak of US diplomatic cables in 2011 featured one description of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi as “feckless, vain and ineffective.”

In Berlin, one US ambassador openly undermined the government, while another in Amsterdam became a laughingstock for refusing to answer journalists’ questions.  Another in Jerusalem openly showed bias in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

From Kenya to New Zealand, the ambassadors appointed by Trump have offended their hosts.  As has been stated by many, ultimately, the rot starts at the top.

To put this all in perspective, the British Parliament’s response to Darroch’s decision to resign as ambassador, which he announced last Wednesday, it was not a reflection of the severity of his comments. The British officials instead said, “There’s an enormous debt of gratitude to the ambassador.”

Even the British Prime Minister stated that it was all ambassador’s for every nation's responsibility, “to speak frankly when communicating to the home land about those in power in foreign relations”.  Based on what we here in the ambassador’s talk about the president, the ambassador was being quite kind to just say that the US president is “inept” and “insecure,” as Darroch had written.  And he stated that Trump’s secretary of state had once even reportedly “dubbed the president a moron.”  All this is true.

As an example on the US side, David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, and Trump’s former lawyer, often appears much too cozy with his host government.  He’s only interested in talking to one group in the Israeli and Palestinian territories, and that is to Israel.  Friedman has even stated that West Bank settlements are in fact a part of Israel.  That has never been agreed.  He was quoted as suggesting that the United States could bypass the Palestinian Authority if they refused to engage with the Trump administration.  False.

Last month, Friedman and White House Mideast peace envoy Jason Greenblatt (who just happens to be another Trump lawyer) were filmed using hammers to break into an archaeological site of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.The image was startling to the Israelis. 

Along with Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and the closure of its consulate in East Jerusalem and much more, it was yet another sign that the United States had picked a side with Israel and against Palestine.  That has never been US policy. 

Up to Trump becoming the US president, much had been done to make the US as a neutral arbiter between the Israelis and the Palestinians, that neutrality has now disappeared.  It may now never be the same neutrality.

Trump has publicly called the officials in other countries “very dishonest & weak,” “stone cold losers”” he has said they were “foolish,” and even called them, “short and fat”.  Trump has also claimed that other nation’s citizens were “turning against their leadership”.”  Trump has told long, mysterious stories about how his friend is scared of Paris because of rising immigration.  He has declined to shake hands with the German leader, and he has privately referred to poor African nations as “shithole countries.”

Yes, that’s our president.

Remember, there’s only one guy in Washington, our president, that gets to express his very caustic, impulsive and candid opinions.

True to form, Trump responded to Darroch’s leaked remarks, of course with a tweet, saying that he had been told the ambassador was “a pompous fool” and “a very stupid guy.” The United States, he declared, would “no longer deal with him.”

Trump’s tweets were “a nasty diplomatic step and an unfriendly act,” said Daniel Fried, who served as US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs during the George W. Bush administration. Yes, another Republican.  Fried told this directly to the Washington Post.

Like most scandals in this Trump administration, the insults will probably be forgotten in less than a week.

But Darroch decided on his own that he had had enough of Trump.  Darroch was well-connected in Washington, he threw great parties and was close with most of Trump’s staff.  But in a town where today’s allies are treated worse than our enemies, none of that means very much in Trump’s world.

Copyright G. Ater 2019